CKAN is the Comprehensive Knowledge Archive Network, a registry of open knowledge packages and projects (and a few closed ones). CKAN is the place to search for open knowledge resources as well as register your own.

It's not by accident that OKF should pick a name that is reminiscent of CPAN (Comprehensive Perl Archive Network), a major resource for Perl programmers.

Simply put: it is knowledge that is open! To be more specific, by knowledge we mean any kind of content, information or data: genes to geodata, sonnets to statistics. By 'open' knowledge we mean knowledge which anyone is free to use, re-use and redistribute without legal, social or technological restriction. For more details and a really precise explanation of what this means see the Open Knowledge Definition.

I find one of the most intellectually interesting part of the Open Knowledge Definition to be the notion of "conformant licenses" -- what licenses are thought to embody the concept of open knowledge and which ones don't. I'm glad to see that CKAN nonetheless allows packages to be associated with a "Non-OKD Compliant::Other" license.

As well as working heavily with the OKF he is also a member of Creative Commons UK, a country coordinator for the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure, and on the board of the Open Rights Group. In addition he is a researcher in Economics based at Cambridge University.